Do you have a fasting strategy? How about a joy strategy?

I was grateful and blessed to spend the day yesterday with a cousin I hadn’t seen in over two years.

At one point, she asked me what my fasting strategy is, how much I fast every day.

I said something like…it varies day to day. I hadn’t really thought about what my fasting strategy is right now.

When I started fasting, I had all sorts of plans and strategies. At first, it was 16:8 that I tried.

16:8 helped me curb nighttime binges and balance my blood sugar. Then, I experimented with 18:6. I extended my fasts to 24 hours, 36, and eventually 48.

At some point, I got into a pattern of doing two fasts a week of 42 hours, doing one feasting day with 3 meals or more, and the rest of the time doing 16:8, or something like that.

Every 3 months, I would do a 3-5 day fast to get into deeper autophagy. This pattern was ReALLY effective for helping me let go of over 70 pounds of excess weight.

Most recently though, my pattern is “I do what I feel like.” The technical term for it is IDWIFL :oP

It’s been working pretty well for me.

I strive for doing at least one fast of 36-42 hours per week, but it doesn’t always happen. Last week, I had 3 days of one meal a day, and one 36 hour fast. This week, I’ve had 3 days of 3 meals a day.

For my birthday in the beginning of May, I did a 5 day fast to gift myself stem cells. Then, I parent chaperoned a trip to Catalina Island and didn’t fast at all for a week. Well ok, I fasted once for 18 hours, but that was it.

If I find myself feasting a lot, I make it a point to take more pauses in between eating and lean into fasting.

If I find myself fasting a lot, I recognize it’s time to feast and throw in a day or two of feasting.

I don’t stress about it at all, just strive for having some sort of balance between fasting and feasting.

And it works for me :)

What’s your fasting strategy? Do you have one?

How about a JOY strategy?

I’ll share about my joy strategy in the comments.

13 comments